An Open Question
The Life of General Dyer. By Ian Colvin. (Blackwood. 20s.)
WAS General Dyer a hot-headed tyrant who risked the white man's prestige in India, or a hero but for whom that prestige might have been lost ? We urge all whom the " Amritsar affair interests to read the dramatic story of his life and attempt to judge for themselves. We can assure them that they will be deeply interested both in the man and his motives, though they may still feel themselves unable to deliver a verdict, excellent advocate for the accused though his biographer proves himself. The Dyers were a West Country family, who had been long resident in India. Reginald Dyer's grandfather was first heard of in Calcutta, where he was a pilot in the service of the East India Company. His son, Edward, Reginald's father, set up a brewery in the hills, and Reginald passed his early boyhood at. Simla, in a large house built on English lines, standing in a large garden not far from the brewery. As the future English General " grew from child to boy, he and his brothers made expeditions deeper and deeper into the surround- ing hills, carrying guns, camping in the woods at night, with no one to look after them but an old Chaprasi. The boy drank the knowledge of India as it were, through his skin."
Under this very odd system of education the brewer's children must have developed very early. When Reginald was not yet twelve and his brother only two or three years older, they were sent to Ireland to school, with a cheque book, a bank credit, and orders to look after themielves. Even in the holidays they were left to their own devices. Not much seems to be known of these independent schooldays. We know that the younger boy cured himself of stammering by hard self-discipline, and that he read every day a page of some Indian classic lest he should forget his Hindustani. He is described as both " gentle and as a fighter.
Later on he passed through Sandhurst and returned to India. A few anecdotes of the subaltern's youth throw a light upon the General's character. He was a very prompt and determined young man with a love of ruling inherited from an able and fear inspiring mother. Once on board an Irrawaddy steamer his servant was brutally bullied by the crew. Awakened one day from an afternoon nap in his cabin by cries for help, he rushed up on deck to find the ',unfortunate native prostrate upon the ground. Dyer stood over his servant and, as his assailants came up, so he knocked them down. The fury of the battle infected the whole crew." Such a commotion ensued that the captain reported the matter, which finally came to the ears of the Commander-in-Chief. Nothing happened. Later on when he should have known better, we hear of his creating quite a serious disturbance by dragging a native official out of some sort of a hired vehicle, which he, Dyer, had engaged and in which the native had innocently or impudently driven off, when his back was turned. The only person who seems ever definitely to have stood up to him was his mother. When he informed her that he was desirous of marrying a charming and eligible lady she forbade the match, and persuaded or coerced his father into threatening to cut him off with a shilling in case of disobedience. " That night a miserable young man, unable to sleep, stole into the garden." 'There by the-edge of the water tank " he became aware of another, also absorbed and obviously unhappy, sitting upon the bank of the pool. It was his father." Young Dyer took heart of grace and married the lady at once.
In the year 1919, when Mr. Colvin's hero was already a General, we find him engaged in a struggle to put down serious revolutionary rioting which had broken out in the Lahore district of the Punjab. Amritsar, a city of about a hundred and sixty thousand inhabitants, was, the danger -spot of th:: district. The discontent was not ltss dangerous because it was explicable. Trade was in desperate confusion. Railway trucks had been commandeered to carry troops.
All speculation in corn had been thrown out of gear by "govern.
ment purchases on public account." It was said in the streets that the Government was exporting grain .to England "while the people of Amritsar sleep with stones in their stomachs:.
Some very ominous happenings showed the fury of the Populace. Several murders were committed in the neigh.
bourhood, both white men and loyal natives being assassinated, and in a by-street of Amritsar an English teacher belonging to a mission was thrown off her bicycle and beaten almost
to death. Threatening crowds collected continuously, and most alarming sign of all, Hindus and Mohammedans were seen drinking out of the same vessels. The situation had slipped out of civil control, safety for Europeans and loyal
Indians alike depended upon the military authority, i.e., upon General Dyer and twelve hundred native troops. The situation as he saw it could only be saved if seditious props. ganda were instantly stopped. He issued a printed proclama- tion forbidding any meeting to take place or crowd to form, saying that should such orders be disregarded, the soldiers would fire on the crowd. In spite of this warning, a meeting took place in an open space in the middle of the town. The numbers in the crowd were very variously stated in evidence. Dyer himself thought there were about six thousand, other witnesses said fifteen thousand. Dyer with more than a thousand men came upon them unawares and opened fire without warning. The crowd, panic stricken, fled in all directions ; he continued to Pre till between three and four hundred were shot down. Then without paying any attention to the wounded or dying he marched away. So far as Amritsar was concerned, the incipient rebellion was at an end, and without a doubt the heart was taken out of the propagandists in the whole Northern Punjab. For this and for making every man going through the by-street in which the English lady was assaulted, go through it crawling, Dyer was tried by the Army Council, very severely censured, deprived of his command, and sent out Of India. The Government upheld the Council's decision. His written defence of hid action is nearly convincing—but his answers in his cross• examination leave one doubting. He admitted that he might have dispersed the crowd without firing—he thought they would have reassembled and that he himself would " have looked a fool." He admitted that he acted to impress India, admitted indeed something very like " frightfulness?' The evidence will make a different impression on different minds. It is probable that a large part of the crowd had never seen the proclamation. We think that, to the majority of plain civilians, it will seem that General Dyer meant to do justice, did indeed do, or might we rather say, did wreak justice, but it was poetic justice rather than English justice. He forgot, as his judges told him, that our principle is to rule with the minimum of force necessary." On the other hand, it cannot be denied that even when the native troops knew of his disgrace his popularity among them remained. India did not resent his action. He seems to have understood the country of his (and his father's and his grandfather's) adoption. Mr. Colvin believes that the Government of India had reason to fear a demonstration in his favour among the troops in Rawalpindi even after he had been ordered home.
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